Page 41 of Sweethearts and Savages
Her eyes got big and wet, and I thought that maybe she was about to cry. It surprised me, because this whole time, she hadn’t cried or pleaded or any of the other girly bullshit you’d expect to happen when youkidnappedsomeone.
She blinked away the dampness in her eyes, and lifted her hand. She was holding it wrong, her fingers trembling. “Broken.”
The desolation in her voice tugged at something in my chest, and I smothered it down. She was my captive. A monster. Instead, I cleared my throat. “I’ve got time. Talk as slow as you damn well need.” I leaned back against the couch, the silver chain snaking over my thighs and up to my wrist like a deadly adornment. “So your parents are deadly? Werewolves too?”
She screwed up her nose. “Shifter.” She pointed to herself. “Wolf shifter.”
A surprised laugh burst past my lips. “Are you chastising me about the correct terminology right now?” She shrugged, her eyebrow raised. “Apologies, little monster. Are your parents wolf shifters too?”
She shook her head, and the smile she gave me would have looked just as natural on a wolf. “Vampires.”
Ice flooded my veins. Oh fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Her eyes taunted me with just how bad I’d fucked up by plucking this wolf from the woods.
I didn’t know a great deal about the supernatural world. It wasn’t something you would search in an encyclopedia in your local library. The information I’d gleaned had been from my Dad before he’d died, and from the dark web, courtesy of Frost.
And the one thing that both these sources agreed on was that you did not fuck with vampires.
They were virtually indestructible, insanely bloodthirsty, and everything a human was not. She wasn’t wrong—I didn’t stand a chance against vampires, if she was telling the truth about her parents. She was also right in that I probably should just cut my losses, kill her now, and escape far across a large body of water while I still could.
“Why the fuck do vampires have a wolf as a daughter? Are you like, an afternoon snack?”
She bared her teeth at me, fire in her eyes that lit up her whole face and made my heart thump in my chest. Not in terror, but in something else that I knew would result in me being dead if I examined it too closely.
“Rescued. Skin traders.”
My eyebrows shot up to my hairline. “Vampires rescued you from the black market? The fuck? You realize none of this makes any sense, right? Like when you see those lions adopt baby lambs. It’s weird.”
She shrugged. Maybe she was lying, but what did she have to gain from that, really? There was a better chance that I’d now kill her and run, rather than letting her go. She’d be a loose end that would definitely result in my death if I just let her go.
The idea of killing her was getting harder to think about though. “Are you going to tell me how you got your head injury now?”
She shook her head, pointing at me. “Why?” She waved a hand around the room, and I didn’t think she was referring to the meaning of life. “Why take me?”
I turned away from those eyes that seared into me. “What the hell is this, twenty questions? We aren’t playing any elementary school games right now, Wolf.”
She turned back to the fire and I battled the discontent that overwhelmed me. “I can’t answer your questions, because otherwise I’d definitely have to dispose of you and I don’t make a habit of kidnapping and murdering girls.”
She gave me a droll look, like she thought I was an idiot. I was inclined to agree today. “Fine. Do you have a name at least?”
She turned back to me, her head tipping to the side, exactly the way the wolf had done twenty-four hours ago before I shot it full of tranqs. I didn’t like seeing comparisons between the girl and the wolf. Because while she was sitting there, on my rug, in front of my fire, I could pretend she was just a pretty human and not one of the monsters that had destroyed my life.
She hesitated a moment longer, before breathing out a sigh. “Enit.”
Enit. I mentally rolled the name around in my mind; I liked it. It was almost old-fashioned but not quite. It spoke of gentleness and tranquility. I wasn’t sure if the girl in front of me represented either of those things for me.
She looked at me expectantly, and against any sane judgement, I said, “Kell.”
Then she smiled at me and it was like she’d punched me in the solar plexus. Her smile lit her whole face, making her eyes sparkle and her cheeks round and her pretty cupid’s bow lips curl. She was already pretty when she was glaring, but right now she was a work of art.
For a moment, it was like I hadn’t fucking stolen her from the organization I’d vowed to punish. We were just a man and a woman.
She lifted her chin. “Pretty.”
I cleared my throat and tried not to blush like a loser. “Thanks.”
Then she turned back to the fire and I attempted to get my pulse—and my goddamn mind—under control. We sat in silence for a long time, until it grew late into the night and I was fighting to keep my eyes open. I’d been running on adrenaline for an entire day and my body was starting to crash.
“We should go to bed,” I murmured, and her whole body froze up like she’d been taxidermied. “I’ll drag the couch closer and sleep on it, and you can have the bed.”
